


A Fair Fight

by sasha_b



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Charles Loves Erik, Erik and Charles get to be happy for once, Erik loves Charles, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kink Meme, M/M, this was really hard to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles is having a day.  Erik helps.</p>
<p>Several years post DOFP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fair Fight

**Author's Note:**

> I write so much angst for this 'verse, when I found this prompt on the Kink Meme I thought I would try my hand at it. Boy, is fluff hard to write. *laughs* I hope it comes across as genuine.
> 
> Spoilers for DOFP.
> 
> Here is the awesome prompt in its entirety:
> 
>  
> 
> _In a post-DOFP world where Erik got over himself and came back, and Charles managed to re-open his school and things are starting to go well again, Charles has a bad day. He has spent the whole time being calm and kind and wise and looking after everyone, because that's what he feels he has to do. Unfortunately he's also human and the kids are giving him migraines and his back is hurting like hell and he really wishes he could just stop being the professor for a minute and be who he used to be when he had no responsibilities at all and no wheelchair and no kids and he went round Oxford drinking and flirting and doing science._
> 
>  
> 
> _Just when he thinks he might snap, Erik intervenes. I would absolutely love to see Erik dealing with the kids (are they homesick or arguing or dealing with powers gone wrong?) and getting Charles the hell out of there for an evening of tender loving care while he deals with everything. Is it chess? a bath? sex? sneaking out of the school for a few hours? I don't care, so long as it's TLC._
> 
>  
> 
> _Bonus for Erik announcing he is in charge for the evening and one of the older kids telling a new kid that you really, really do not want to go and bug Professor Lehnsherr when he's in that mood._
> 
>  
> 
> _Double bonus for Professor Lehnsherr actually being a big softy... in his own special way._

There are several dozen mutant children roaming the halls.

Erik cocks his head as he stands at the head of the corridor – where are the other teachers? Where do the young ones think they’re going? Don’t they have classes, don’t they have assignments or training or things to do? He crosses his arms over his chest, his plain polo and jeans boring in comparison to some of the things they wear – peacocks. He snorts and rolls his eyes, wondering what he missed, since he obviously didn’t get the memo about free time. Or something.

Where is Charles?

“Professor? Professor Lehnsherr?”

Erik keeps his eyes on the hallway, but uncrosses his arms. “Summers?”

“I had a meeting scheduled with Professor Xavier – have you seen him?”

The boy’s dark red hair is in Erik’s periphery, but he doesn’t give – Scott, yes – another thought even though the boy is bouncing up and down on his toes. “Not recently. Go to study hall.” The boy steps into Erik’s field of view and Erik finally sighs and meets his gaze; as much as he can with the boy wearing those dark glasses. “Go. To. Study Hall, Mr. Summers. He’s here somewhere. Stop worrying and I’ll send him to you when I find him.”

“But Professor Lehnsherr, I have a report due and it’s past time and what if he’s not around when I actually need him to proofread and haven’t we got to turn things on time and hey, what are you doing?”

The kids that are milling in the hallway are too noisy and acting as though Charles and the rest of them haven’t taught them _anything_ in the past five plus years. Erik waves his hand and lets Scott Summers down from where he’d pinned him to the wall by his belt.

The crowd of children freezes and turns to stare at them.

“The next one of you that doesn’t do what I suggest can also be a wall hanging. Now, go study.”

In ten seconds the corridor is clear.

“Sorry, Prof- ”

“Scott. Go.”

Scott goes, but nothing without mumbling under his breath _don’t want to ever get on his bad side_ as he passes Erik. Erik merely purses his mouth and sighs – he can now resume the search for Charles without the thundering noise of thirty or so teens.

_Bad side._

“You don’t want to see my bad side, child.”

Erik takes a step forward and shakes off the memory that he’d threatened to dredge up –

_I’m upstairs._

He pinches the bridge of his nose and then takes the stairs two at a time, toward the back of the mansion and Charles’ room. He can hear talking still and can feel the metal that’s begun to clank in the kitchen – it’s getting close to supper – but that all fades away as he gains the carpeted hallway and the hush that pervades it.

*

Charles is in the bed.

Erik’s face remains passive, but he sits close to the other man and puts out a hand, resting his long fingers on Charles’ bare foot, even though he knows Charles can’t feel it. He likes to touch him, no matter. A twinge of _you did this_ echoes and he opens his mouth to speak, but Charles beats him to it.

“That was a long time ago.”

“What are you doing?” Erik ignores the comment; he carries his guilt the way Charles carries his own, and he will never let it go, no matter what the other man says. He knows Charles loves him and has forgiven him – but that doesn’t mean Erik has to forget –

“I’m resting.”

Erik smells scotch. “Are you drinking? At four in the afternoon?”

“Why not?”

Erik hadn’t caught Charles’ mood when he’d come in the room. Granted, he should have known something was up in that the other man wasn’t where he was supposed to be, seeing students and running his school and training other mutants to love themselves, yada yada.

Not that Erik doesn’t believe in the cause. He does. But his life, up until Charles had found him, had been one huge awful ball of pain and loss after another, and then he’d been imprisoned and things had gone from bad to worse and he’d only managed to find Charles again after so much loss had nearly twisted him into something he didn’t recognize – no matter that he was Magneto, still, even to some of the students.

That name came from Raven, so he’s accepting of it. He swallows and turns his attention to Charles fully. Charles, drinking by himself, skipping class, self-pitying.

“Aren’t you meant to be worried about me and not all that dreck from the past?”

Oh, Charles _is_ drunk.

“Charles,” Erik starts, running his hand up Charles’ leg, the pajama pants the other man wears rumpled and a bit musty smelling. “What’s going on in there?” He keeps his eyes on Charles’ leg and his hand, until Charles puts out his own hand and stops him right below his groin. The banging from the kitchen starts to grow loud enough for it to invade Charles’ room – his room, too, really – and Charles snarls and raises his right hand to his temple and they are cocooned in silence and the tiny light from the Tiffany lamp at their bedside.

“I am old.”

“You are not,” Erik laughs, but it dies away as Charles stays serious, his drunken face twitching with the amount of alcohol he’s imbibed. “What’s brought this on?” He winds his fingers with Charles’ and sighs faintly when the other man doesn’t shove him away. Charles uses his other hand and pulls his legs up close to his buttocks, and levers himself up so he’s propped up higher on the pillows. “Erik – do you remember Washington?”

Erik’s eyebrows mash together, forming one crinkled line. “Yes,” he starts, wondering where in the world Charles is going with this. And why. 

That hadn’t been the best of times – it still sours his stomach to think on it, and he wonders how Charles can bear to remember that Erik had left him – again. Erik had his reasons – he had/has the cause, his cause. But now he has _this_ and it’s just not enough to fight alone anymore. He narrows his gaze and steadily meets Charles’ eyes. He is not afraid of this man, or of them. Tremulous, maybe, but afraid, no. Whatever the reason Charles wants to talk about what had happened, he will let the other man go there and say whatever he needs to say. Without fear of reprisal or of Erik leaving him. He couldn’t begin to think of that any-

The light around them is soft but it gradually fades as Charles lets his focus drift, the noises from downstairs invading once again. “Not that time,” Charles sighs. He watches Erik, his eyes mirroring the bright blues ones that hold his. He picks up the half empty tumbler that sits on the table next to the bed and sips from it, Erik not trying to stop him – Charles is an adult and he can do what he wants. 

“That time was – not that time, Erik. The first time. The time we sat outside and played chess and went to the clubs and drank and fooled around in that hotel room near the Mall.”

_Not the time where I dropped the stadium on you._

“No, not that time.” Charles says again and takes another sip of the scotch and stares at Erik, Erik feeling the weight of that gaze like a thousand tons of bricks on his shoulders. “That was – at any rate,” he sighs, and rubs his forehead. Erik tents his fingers together and wonders if he’s done something as he can’t imagine why Charles is thinking about their recruiting mission, as it was so long ago. Another lifetime ago. He shakes his head and gestures for Charles to continue.

Silence. The wall clock ticks, and Erik finally stands and crosses his arms. He wiggles the fingers of his left hand and the door behind them locks, the bolt sliding loudly and with a finality he finds cheering, suddenly. The noise of the day and the students and the _everything_ that they deal with all the time is still there, but Erik snaps on the turntable, and soft jazz fills the room. Charles takes another sip from his tumbler and cocks an eyebrow.

“I am old and I don’t remember a time when I could just drink and chat people up and drink and do things for the sake of just doing them and drink, and did I mention drink, Erik? And the time I didn’t have to manage what seems like a million children and when I didn’t have to share you with others, and when I wasn’t worried about everything, including having you not here in the morning some days, and damn it, wait, what are you – ”

Erik leans forward and stops Charles’ mouth with his own.

Then the sounds from outside are gone completely, this time, and Charles reaches up a hand and winds it in Erik’s hair.

*

They’ve missed dinner.

There have been a few knocks at the door, but Charles had touched his temple and whoever had been looking for them had gone away without question. 

Erik lies next to Charles, both of them naked and sweaty and tired, Charles’ head tucked into the crook of Erik’s neck, the way he likes it and deems it fits appropriately. There are times when Erik’s feeling sentimental and sappy, and when the fact that he gets to be here with Charles really hits him…there are times he fully believes he’d been born with a Charles’ shaped notch knocked into his being.

Charles laughs, and although it’s slightly sloppy and drunken sounding, it’s genuine and it’s _Charles_ and Erik can’t help but smile too. He tilts his head and presses lips to Charles’ forehead and shifts upward so he can see the other man’s face.

“I fill your hole?”

“ – I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. And stop doing that.”

Charles laughs again and nuzzles up next to Erik, the moon shining full and soft through the window that’s been thrown open with a gesture from Erik. He is quiet and happy (and yes, a bit drunk still) and Erik closes his eyes and thanks whatever gods have decided to let Charles have a moment of peace in the middle of the chaos of their lives, to let him not dwell on the things Erik did and might still do (he won’t go there), to let Charles love Erik the way he seems to, and to have had a bit of mercy on them – he narrows his eyes and stops that train of thought.

Whatever gods there are, he’s never been helped by one. He’s only been helped by himself and in the end, by this man he’s holding and he turns to Charles and kisses his mouth again. “How are you?” he murmurs onto Charles’ red lips, the other man breathing scotch fumes and _Charles_ musk into his face. Erik doesn’t care.

“I’m with you.”

Erik rolls his eyes slightly, but only to make the laugh that he knows is going to come from Charles come. It does, and he tightens his hold on Charles and presses his lips to Charles’ forehead, some of the other man’s hair sticking to his lips. He ignores the burn in his own eyes; from many things, and from one thing – the one thing that’s nestled in his arms and suddenly snoring more loudly than Erik would have thought capable.

He snorts and rubs his eyes with a free hand and snaps off the lights with a finger wave, comfortable in the presence of the one thing and many he never thought he’d get or deserve. No matter what Logan had said about them having been together in the future – he wouldn’t believe it, and some nights he still doesn’t, deep in his heart of hearts, that bit that’s still the _little Erik_ Sebastian Shaw had taught him to be. That bit is still there, will always be there, but it’s surrounded now by the bigger bit that’s Erik Lehnsherr – Magneto, yes – but also Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier.

He turns over and for once, doesn’t dream of a white beach dotted with metal parts and blood and pain and huge blue eyes that cry never ending tears.


End file.
